However, since then it's been all downhill for the firm. It began to post losses, its CEO was forced to resign, and suddenly "cheap" was perceived in a whole new light. Suddenly Acer began to aspire to be more like Apple -- a premium vendor with large margins.

Recent estimates on global PC sales show Acer shedding nearly 20 percent of its U.S. and 10 percent of its global market share, falling to fifth place in the U.S. and fourth place globally in PC sales (excluding tablets).

Acer feels that by focusing on good battery life, a thin design, and light weight it will be able to return to sales success. The culmination of all those characteristics is "ultrabook" a class of PCs first introduced by HP's "Envy" and Apple's MacBook Air luxury designs back in 2008. Officially the term "ultrabook" comes from chipmaker Intel Corp. (INTC) and has a strict set of hardware quality requirements for use.

Mr. Wang comments, "Selling more ultrabooks will also help improve our profit margins as they command higher prices."

Acer's first ultrabook, the Aspire S3-951, went on sale on Oct. 10, 2011. The 13-inch design is remarkably similar in look to the MacBook Air, complete with a thin metal shell case. It's currently retailing for as low as $870 USD from Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), compared $1,290 USD for the cheapest 13-inch MacBook Air.

If all goes according to plan, Acer hopes to halt the losses and grow 10 percent in 2012. But to do that, it argues, it must stop selling "cheap" junk.

The advantages are easily quantified. The only other laptops I would consider are mid and high end Lenovos for very similar reasons.

Your arguments are based on rhetoric and emotion, not logic or objective reasoning. But please, continue to shill for cheap and poorly made products. I have zero issue with low-end hardware btw, I understand that not everyone can afford something that is well made with good components, but to say that they are somehow superior is ridiculous.

Acers may be cheaper than other products...but they're not poorly made.

And that doesn't make it low-end hardware either...specs are specs. At the time, other comparable models were generally a couple hundred dollars more at a minimum. Makes no difference which one you buy - they all perform essentially the same.

And there are plenty of examples of really expensive products being worse than inexpensive ones. Bose for example. Pretty much anything is superior to Bose, at darn near any price point. There's a reason Bose prohibits actual audiophile publications from reviewing their products...